


There Are No Signs

by meli_fan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Jealousy, basically Edric tries to play matchmaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 03:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1803292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meli_fan/pseuds/meli_fan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tells Ned. Not that she would be very good at finding those even if she wanted.</p>
<p>"I think that if you tried to look for them you would find them." Ned said, still smiling like he knew something she didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are No Signs

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Arya stays with the brotherhood. I wanted to write something more light-hearted and did this as a series in tumblr. Now that it's over I'm posting it all together here.
> 
> Basically it's just a build-up for a kiss and a love declaration. Don't expect much more that that xD Excuse any typos or mistakes.

 

 

Arya knows many things. She knows how to handle a sword, how to shoot with a bow and arrow, she knows how to hunt, how to kill, how to hide and how to steal. She knows how to cook, how to heal battle wounds better than all the men of the Brotherhood, she knows how to take care of her own moonblood and how to braid her hair to keep it out of the way. She knows a few songs thanks to Tom, how to hit a moving target thanks to Anguy and how to take good care of a horse thanks to Harwin.

 

Arya does not know the art of love, but she does know how to fight with Gendry. She is a master in that particular aspect.

 

The men never stop mocking them for acting like Sharna and her husband on a daily basis, Of all the things that make her so unprincess-like, they say, nothing beats the way she and Gendry fight each other, throwing insults and curses around like a sailor. She can’t help herself really, everything that comes out of his mind always sound so stupid to her. And he’s so stubborn.

 

She finds him incredibly annoying, but at the same time, she can’t help it when her heart misses a beat when he smiles at her, when he goes out of his way to make her more comfortable, when he collects blackberries for her or offers his own cloak to her on cold night even when usually she can handle the cold better than he does.

 

And she can’t help the anger that bubbles up inside of her whenever they go to the Peach, and Gendry accepts the company of some girl. He always does it in the most subtle way, and preferably after she had gone to sleep, but does it anyway. Arya could understand if at least they were beautiful women, like the ones at court that Arya once saw and found so dashing her own little self admired.

 

"I just don’t understand why you would pay for a girl so plain."

 

"Mind your own business Arya." He would say.

 

"I’m just saying, if you’re going to pay, might as well do it for something more-"

 

"Do you really appreciate women so much you have an opinion on them? If a real beauty came along you would pay for a night in their bed too? Would you, my lady, would you?"

 

"Shut up idiot, I’m just saying." She wanted to hit him! It’s not like she wanted women, she just knew none of those girls were pretty enough for him.

 

"Well I don’t need you opinion." He was clearly uncomfortable with the subject. She just didn’t understand. He was stupid, sure, but he was a good lad and a good fighter, kind…

 

… and handsome, so very handsome. Why pick whores as gaunt and unkempt as her?

 

'He might as well warm my bed', she thought. The idea made her feel warm inside, and once again she tried to ignore those feelings. 'He looks at you like a sister. Stop yourself.'

 

But she couldn’t, not really. Some nights, when she remembered her brothers, or the state in which they found her mother’s corpse, or her father’s headless body falling in the steps of the Sept of Baelor, Arya wanted Gendry. She wanted him to hold her, and tell her he would always be there, that he would not leave her.

 

'He is not mine' She thought. 'I must not need him, I am a wolf and I must not need him.'

 

*/*

 

Once, a long time ago, Gendry had disliked Edric Dayne. She remembered his nasty comments towards the young lord and his general contempt towards whatever Edric said. Arya instead, had always found him nice company.

 

"I don’t understand why he acts that way with Ned" Arya had complained to Anguy back when she was ten and three. The archer just laughed at her and gave her a smile.

 

"Maybe he’s jealous, little lady."

 

"Why?" the idea of Gendry being jealous, at the time seemed stupid to her. "Gendry is just my friend" she made clear.

 

Anguy then shoot Gendry a pitying look from far away before telling her “Perhaps he wants to be your only friend.”

 

With time, Gendry eventually let go of his childish dislike of Edric and although they never became close, they managed to be within each other’s presence without so much bickering, perhaps in regard to their friendship with Arya.

 

And Gendry never once again showed Anguy’s so-called ‘jealousy’ over other boys. As time passed, many new lads joined their group and some of them were close to Arya’s age. Surrounded by so many older men, she enjoyed their company, and tried to be kind to them and make friends.

 

While little Arya had been happy Gendry didn’t scowled at her new friends, older Arya, the one who scowled at the girls who did talk to Gendry, felt a little sad at his apparent lack of reaction whenever boys became close friends with her. At ten and six, she was flowered and received attentions more than once in awhile. And she tried her best to smile and be polite as her own mother once taught her, and wonders if it does not bother Gendry that she is nice to others but not to him.

 

'He doesn't see me that way' she thinks. And she wants to not care, she wants to be more focused on other things. But their life is always the same constant: looking for food, taking care of the weak, finding Lannister dogs…And the only things to spark her life were her fights with Gendry, They both get so worked up, their faces nearly touching while calling out the other in their uselessness and stupidity.

 

More than once Arya had imagined their quarrels end with their lips smashed together, fighting with their lips and tongues instead of their words and fists.

 

They fight some band one day. Another set of outlaws, but of the bad kind, the one that burns villages and rapes women. They save a town, and Gendry is right next to her the entire battle, with a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other. She tells him not to take care of her, but he does anyways. It irritates her, but deep inside, it also fills her with affection towards him too. She tries to take care of him as well. Once the whole thing is over they smile and hug each other tightly, glad to be alive, together.

 

But later when the villagers are thanking them in their square and bringing food and Tom sings and some people dance, Gendry goes away with yet another scrawny woman, Arya can’t hide the deception on her face, and hopes that Edric doesn’t notice. She had casually mentioned how her sister danced one of the songs and Ned had described her some of the steps, but Gendry had become serious and said that lowborn bastards knew no dance steps and went out to find the scrawny whore.

 

"You know," Edric says as she look at Gendry go away with the girl, " he likes you."

 

"No he doesn’t," she is certain. She gives Ned one look and he’s smiling, as if she’s a stubborn child and not a girl who has already realized the man she wants does not want her back.

 

"Arya, he does not know it. And you do not know it. But he does." Ned says with a kind smile.

 

"I know him better than anyone; he does not see me that way." She answers because it’s the truth and maybe it’s the ale or the deception, but it feels liberating to be able to speak of this with someone as close as Ned.

 

"And I know what is like to want someone and to be wanted back and what comes later." Edric tells her. "Have you ever tried to even look for signs?"

 

Arya barks out a short laugh then, because the entire thing sounds too much like something Sansa would have said a long time ago. It makes her realize how useful her sister could be in this case. It gives her a pain in her chest, but she has learned to live with those. The little memories that sometimes threaten to break her apart; she always manages to somehow to overcome those. Gendry is there whenever she needs him.

 

"There are no signs." she tells Ned. Not that she would be very good at finding those even if she wanted.

 

"I think that if you tried to look for them you would find them." Ned said, still smiling like he knew something she didn’t.

 

"Listen Ned, if he fucking wanted me, he would care if men talked to me. Pretty sure he would care if you and I are alone together, but you see, he left, he does not even bother."

 

"That’s because he’s not worried about me." Ned says. "He trusts you have no interest."

 

"Ned, no offense, but how do you even know all these shit?" She asks because, really, Ned who used to blush like a maiden may have grown, but he couldn’t have possibly become Theon Greyjoy in four, five years.

 

Then it’s Ned who laughs, but the sound is missed as many people join in the lines of the song Tom is singing.

 

"Arya, I am Dornish." And that’s it, that’s all the explanation he gives to her. And somehow, some way, that convinces Arya.

 

"So, how do you plan on showing to me AND Gendry, that he actually wants me? Because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t" Arya could not understand where Ned was coming from. She wanted proof-

 

"Well Arya, see it may take some time, but you and Gendry will see." There was mischief in Edric’s eyes but kindness as well. "First thing you will do, from now on, fight me."

 

"What?" Did she hear that one alright?

 

"No more fighting with Gendry. From now on, you gotta act with me like you act with him. Call me stupid, push me around, and tell everyone I’m a useless idiot."

 

"How could that possibly- Ned you’re so full of shit!" She was aghast at the stupidity of his plan. Or maybe the ale was making everything Ned said sound even silllier, she did not know.

 

"Tell you what- do as I say, and I’ll prove to you that what I said about him is true. It’s a dare. I dare you that pretty bow Anguy made for you."

 

Arya liked her bow, it was very polished and nicely carved and it helped her hunt, but she also knew Anguy could easily make her another one with the right wood. “And what if I win? What if there is nothing to prove?”

 

"Then," Ned started, "I’ll trade you my sword for yours." Immediately Arya wanted to agree. Ned’s sword was made of far better steel than hers, not to mention hers was stolen from a dead man, while Ned’s was made in a castle especially for his weight and stature, very similar to hers.

 

"Deal?"

 

"Deal." They shook hands.

 

"Now remember, starting tomorrow, act with me the way you act with Gendry. And be nicer to him."

 

"I’ll try to be nicer to him, can’t promise anything."

 

She would try her hardest though. Whatever plan Ned had, Arya would follow, certain he would lose.

 

If she couldn’t have the man she wanted, a good steel sword was a sweet consolation price.

 

*/*

 

They travel the Riverlands, smoothly trying to keep things in order. The Dragon Queen arrived not long ago to Westeros, but the Freys bend the knee easily. Queen Daenerys has been focused on trying to achieve some form of loyalty with the Westerlands, while trying to battle Stannis Baratheon in the North. Therefore, she has not set her mind in getting the order back in the Riverlands and ending the scrounges of groups of men that formed from former armies torn apart. With the hard winter, bandits have become even more common, and the Brotherhood have taken their protective duty very seriously.

 

It all feels to foreign no Arya. She knows nothing of this Dragon Queen, and feels only a mild curiosity at her beasts. Arya has her Nymeria, but her direwolf is doing her own scouting with her large pack and Arya has not been with her for a week. She misses her, and she knows the men feel strangely protected with Nymeria, who had taken kindly to them seeing as they’re Arya’s friends.  At the same time, her nights inside her wolf help her cope, and she can feel her pet is coming closer to her.

 

"What is it?" comes Gendry’s voice from next to her, looking at her with mild worry.

 

"Why?" she asks, and reminds herself not to be so harsh, "Something wrong?"

 

"I am asking you, …you had a bit of a lost look in there." He shrugged.

 

"Perhaps a memory, my lady?" came Ned’s voice. Reminding herself of her task, Arya made a  show of rolling her eyes and addressed Ned impolitely.

 

"None of your business, Dayne!" She all but shouted at him. From somewhere, a laugh came. The men were used to her temper, and always found it funny when poor Gendry was subjected to it. Apparently Ned could be made fun of too. Gendry instead gave her a strange look.

 

"No need to be like that my lady, just wanted to ask how you were." Ned said, offering a smile that was clearly meant to be charming. Arya was looking at him, but she would have loved to see Gendry’s reaction to the obvious mischief in Ned’s lips.

 

"Well, I have no time for your stupid questions."

 

"You had time for them the other day at the Peach." Ned’s voice was quieter this time, and only Arya and probably Gendry could hear. She saw in Ned’s nearly violet eyes a signal for her to look at Gendry’s direction. Arya pretended to be flustered and wanting to avoid him, and this allowed her to give a look towards Gendry. Her friends was gripping the reins so hard his knuckles were white, and his face seemed to have barely contained anger.

 

"Probably from the ale, you idiot, why don’t you go bug another?" She said to Ned, who winked one eye at her and went to talk to Anguy.

 

Ever since they left the Peach, Arya had been fighting with Edric over everything, from the way he was polishing his, no, her soon to be sword, to the way he made his bedding at camp to how he cooked the rabbit she hunted. It made everyone laugh, but Gendry.

 

"Why," came her friend’s voice, "why are you acting like that with him?" he asked, and there was perhaps even some sadness to his question. Arya did not understand. She wanted him to want her, not to feel sad. Stupid Ned!

 

"He’s just… well, stupid." It truly was all she count think of the Dornish squire right now.

 

"Did he," he stopped and gave her one look up and down, as if looking for something, and there was anger in his eyes again. "Did he try anything with you that day at the Peach?"

 

"I.. We…" While trying to think of a good lie, the group came to a stop. They had come across a abandoned farm, and as always, they would look for some provisions for the poor in there.

She never answered Gendry, and he kept on looking at her the entire day.

 

*/*

 

"It worked!" Ned whispered to her much later, when everyone was asleep and only the man of the first watch remained with his eyes open. Him and Arya, who had left her sleeping place next to Gendry to walk some, and think of something besides her nightmare, which were just happy memories that haunted her and hurt her worse than her bad ones. Ned had joined her on her walk.

 

"Did it?"

 

"He’s been staring at me with murder in his eyes all day! And he hasn’t left your side, what did you tell him?"

 

"He asked if something happened in the Peach, I got distracted and told him nothing."

 

"He’s jealous then, you see, because you started to treat me the way you treat him!" Ned was excited, Arya couldn’t help but laugh. Was this how Sansa would act if she were helping her?

 

"That doesn’t mean he wants me. He used to be jealous of you when we were kids, and it had nothing to do with wanting me then. Not in that way." Arya said, remembering Anguy’s words.

 

Ned nodded, but he didn’t seem too convinced. “I think he’s a lot like you, he’s not really good at knowing how he feels. Do you love him?”

 

The question caught her off guard. To Arya, love seemed so strange, love was something that happened between her parents, who had children and ruled a castle and slept next to each other in a featherbed, love was between and knights and ladies of stories, who fought giants and dragons and entire armies for love. To her, love was not days filled with dirt and riding and hunting and fighting endlessly. That was she had with Gendry, and the only thing she was certain of was that she wanted to keep having that, as long as he stopped looking at other woman and looked at her in all the ways a woman wanted to be looked at.

 

"I don’t know… I’m not sure." She admitted grudgingly. Ned smiled at her again.

 

"Yeah, it’s okay."

 

The kept walking on silence, only the distant howling of wolves between them. It gave Arya some comfort. he felt Nymeria getting closer to her every day. A random thought came to Arya’s head, and she spoke her mind before thinking it.

 

"You think I could-" she stopped herself, and felt her own cheeks heating up.

 

"What?"

 

"Nothing." Would it be so bad to tell Ned?

 

"C’mon!"

 

"It’s just that, maybe he doesn’t want me because he knows I don’t know how to- what to- do with men?" She lowered her voice at the last part. Ned seemed like he wanted to burst into laughing, but she managed to shoot him one menacing look before he simply chuckled.

 

"First, he wants you, he doesn’t know it, it’s different." Ned said, and then gave her a kind smile and stopped her, holding her by her shoulder like you do to a kid. "Second, whatever men and women do, it comes to us like an instinct. It’s true some practice helps, but it really happens naturally."

 

"Really?" Arya had only ever trained in all the skills she had, she had trained her swordplay, her hunting, her shooting, her riding.

 

"Well, as I said, some practice helps, but… nothing ever feels the same with different people. It’s a constant… state of learning, really." He gave her one look and whispered. "Have you ever even kissed someone.?"

 

"No." Years ago, the idea of kissing anyone may have seemed disgusting to her, now…. Well, she certainly didn’t want to kiss Lem, but she could understand the appeal. She had never done it though, and it sort of terrified her a little that if she ever kissed Gendry, she would be very bad at it and reject her.

 

"You just put your lips together and try to move them in a sort of… rhytm with the other person. Sometimes there’s tongues moving in between. Ned chuckled.

 

"That’s all you can teach me? Really?"

 

"Well, you can’t teach much unless you’re doing it!" Ned was laughing again, and Arya shoved him and he stopped. "Do you want to?"

 

"What?" Was he serious? Ned lifted his shoulder and gave her a funny expression.

 

"You seem to be so ashamed of it, and it’s no big deal, really. Unless you want it to be Gendry’s. I can understand-"

 

She put her lips to him, the way she had seen some girls do, and closed her eyes. Ned didn’t move, at all. His lips were not soft, but they were humid. Then she felt both his hands in her face, and he moved her head a little. Then he moved his lips, opening them just a bit to take her bottom lip in his. It gave made her feel suddenly all tense inside, but he separated only just a bit, a signal for her to do the same, so she did, she took his bottom lip between hers. In the strangest of ways, in a  dance she did not know she knew the steps of, they began to move their lips.

 

Ned was right, it was an instinct.

 

Ned separated from her, and gave her a silent nod. He was right too, it did not felt like such a big deal. Once it was done, she felt like it was so easy.

 

"Was I good?" she asked, and she wanted his opinion. Someway, somehow, she wanted to be perfect for Gendry. Or maybe she wanted to be better than him, which she knew she could be.

 

He was so clumsy Arya was sure she could become a better kisser than him in no time.

 

"Yes, the best!" The last part was clearly a jape, and she shoved him again before they silently decided to go back to sleep.

 

She was settling in her place between Gendry and Ned when a doubt came to her mind.

 

"Pst! Ned" she whispered, willing his eyes open.

 

"What?" he asked, now in a bad humor.

 

"When I kiss him, it will feel like that then?"

 

Ned gave her a long look before answering. “You will probably feel like it’s a million times better,” he said and Arya smiled at the thought. “But I can assure I am much better my lady.”

 

Arya laughed at that, and could not keep quiet. Ned went back to sleep and she turned towards Gendry, who had awaken with her chuckles and was giving her a queer look.

 

"What’s so funny you had to wake me?" his voice was laced with sleep.

 

"Ned, he’s just such an idiot." she said. Gendry furrowed his brow while still with his eyes closed.

 

"Well, you’re not gonna hear me denying it." He opened his eyes, then and gave her a smile, she smiled at him too, like two kids who share secrets. And his eyes, oh, the way he looked at her, she was sure, it was the way all women wanted to be looked.

 

"Hey, I heard that!"

 

*/*

 

They were travelling again. A young girl, named Lyna, had joined them. Their group had come across what seemed an abandoned farm, but Nymeria had trotted to the house and whined. When they went inside they saw an older farmer dying from a festering wound, and his young daughter trying to care for him in his deathbed. The brotherhood had tried to help him, but he passed during the day. The girl had an aunt who could receive her in a nearby village, and so they went.

 

Lyna did not know how to ride, so she settled behind Arya, a bit frightened by Nymeria at first, until eventually she got used to the gigantic beast. She was a sad and quiet girl at first, but with time she got more talkative and now she sometimes took part in their conversations.

 

"Of course, for a girl nothing beats a kiss down there!" Anguy joked, as the men talked kissing, of all things.

 

"How would you know that, if they hardly ever come at you?" Redbeard answered, and they all laughed before quiet took over them again.

 

"I’ve never even kissed a boy in the lips," Lyna admitted out loud, which earned her a look from

the men that was basically cuteness melted. Anguy told her sweetly that perhaps her first kiss would come soon. "What does it feel like the first time? For a girl, I mean" she asked Arya.

 

She didn’t have to look to her right to feel Gendry’s stare. Already Anguy and Redbeard were giving her amusing grins while Edric shared with her a look of complicity before she answered.

She could practically hear him screaming at her to take her chance.

 

"It’s kind of wet… and sloppy at first." She admitted. "Then it gets better, it come to you like an instinct."

 

"Oh."

 

"But you didn’t answer her," came Ned’s voice. "You told her how it is, not how it makes you feel."

 

Damn Ned. This time, she couldn’t avoid it, she looked at Gendry’s direction. He was right next to her, tall and muscled, piercing her with his blue eyes. Her gaze made her tense, but in a chilling way.

 

"Tense, at first. You don’t know what you’re doing and everything feels so new. And then something else, like a burning sensation. And then you’re relaxed." All of them were looking at her. "Well I don’t know I’m not a bloody poet!"

 

The men laughed, all but Gendry.

 

*/*

 

There was a sort of party in the village. Apparently it was the butcher’s son wedding to a girl from the local inn. Lyna found her aunt quite quickly, and they were all invited to stay and have some ale and some food.

 

Gendry had disappeared somewhere and, while she hadn’t seen him with anyone, she suspected he was with some girl. Why else miss all the celebration?

 

Nymeria had stayed behind in the forest, it was not good for her to get too close to a place filled with people who feared the animal. Arya wanted her by her side so bad, to hold her and find warmth in her fur. More than once she had slept on the ground too tired to form a sort of bedding and just getting warm from sleeping next to the giant direwolf. While most men had to find dry leaves to put between the humid dirt and their layers of capes, all she had to do was curl up next to her pet and slept soundly until the morning.

 

The day was cold, but the sky was clear. The sun was up in the sky. Lately the cold that had greatly affected the Riverlands had begun to diminish, but the winter was far from over. The road North still remained extremely dangerous. Still, lately she had found herself longing for the North much more than she used to. She did not know why. After they had found her mother’s body, she had lost all will to go back. She had hardly eaten back then, if it hadn't been for Gendry’s insistence, she had probably starved herself in her sadness.

 

"Worried about Nymeria?" Edric’s voice was not teasing, which she thanked. Today, for some strange reason, she had no wish for schemes or jokes.

 

"I always am when we’re close to a village. Someone may attack her if they catch a glimpse of her."

 

Edric nodded, but she could tell he wanted to tell her something still. She looked at his violet eyes. Somehow, she knew she would not like what would come next.

 

"I uh… spoke to the septon. He has some news. About the North. He received a raven from a friend."

 

That was new. The brotherhood was usually well informed of what happened South. But the North was almost isolated, strong wind storms keeping travelers away.  For a while, all they knew was that the Lannister had married a fake Arya Stark with Ramsay Bolton. While it never failed to make her angry - and boy it did, Nymeria was so bloodthirsty the first days after they heard it, she could not help to think the wolf felt her own feelings - she also knew there was little she could do. Then afterwards it was said that Stannis Baratheon held Winterfell, the bastard of Bolton slain and the girl revealed as fake.

 

Then the Dragon Queen arrived, and it was said she had been unable to convince Stannis to bend the knee. That was all they knew. Whatever they had told Ned, it could not be good.

 

"Dark wings, dark words."

 

"Stannis Baratheon is at the Wall, his men helping the Night’s Watch." Arya furrowed her brow; it did not seem like Stannis to give up his fight. "However the North remained independent."

"How’s that even possible? Who has taken power now? The Umbers?"

 

"No." Edric kept looking at her. "Daenerys Targaeryen is riding in one of her dragons to meet with the new King in the North to talk to him personally about bending the knee."

 

"What?"

 

"The Manderlys brought back Rickon Stark. He became King in the North a few moons ago. All the Northern houses bend the knee to him."

 

Arya could not understand, surely everyone was mistaken. Rickon was burned along with Bran by Theon Greyjoy. It was not possible. It was another fake.

 

"And let me guess, they had him all this time? Another fake boy that they raised to repeat a fake story they shoved down his throat-"

 

"The brought him from the island of Skaagos, where he was living with a wildling named Osha that smuggled him out of Winterfell. He has a direwolf. A wild black beast called Shaggy-"

 

"Shaggydog." her voice was barely a whisper when she finished his sentence. Suddenly she could not breathe. It was as if that hole that had been in her heart for so long was suddenly filled with boiling water. She couldn’t breathe. "I need to- I need to go find Nymeria."

 

Next thing she knew she was in the woods, holding on to a tree as if it were her own little brother, her mind giving her countless images of baby Rickon and a deep pain filling her lungs.

 

Suddenly two large hands grabbed her by the shoulders. “Breathe.”  His voice is softer, softer that she has ever heard it. Finally she allows air to enter her lungs. She imagines Rickon as a baby, running behind her and Bran trying to catch up as they create havoc in the courtyard.

 

"He held on to my dress." She breathed out.

 

"What?"

 

"The day we went south with father. When I hugged him goodbye. He was just a baby and we didn’t know if Bran would survive and when I went to say goodbye, he held on to my dress. Clutching it with his little fingers." The tears were flowing now, and it felt so strange. She hadn’t cried, not in years, not even in her worst nights. She tries to hold them up but fails miserably.

 

"It’s ok to cry," Gendry’s voice is kind. The only time she had heard him speak this softly was when they found her mother. Gendry hugs her, and at first she wishes to shake him off, desperately trying to prove she’s not weak. But her own body betrays her, and her head falls into his chest helplessly. His body is made of hard toned muscle, but everything about him feels soft. "Rickon, he’s the youngest, right? The one that looked like a little Robb?"

 

She never speaks much of her family, but she smiles when she realizes he had been playing attention to the little things she has said over the years.

 

"Yes." She sniffled. She quickly cleaned her nose with her sleeve and cleared her throat. "He must be ten or so by now. Still a boy."

 

She was no longer crying, but he kept on holding her. She felt like she could sleep in there. Spent the rest of her lifetime in his arms. There was no cold, no hunger. The hole in her chest felt smaller, but she could not tell if that was because of him or the news about Rickon.

 

She put some space between them, and spoke more strongly. “I must find Edric.” Immediately Gendry’s face was unfriendly and clearly pissed.

 

"Why so, my lady?" He was clearly angry, he only ever called her so when he wanted to be harsh. She only frowned at the title.

 

"To apologize. I left him abruptly and clearly upset. He must feel very guilty and I don’t want him to think he made me sad." In a way he did, but only because really she was happy.

 

She felt so strange. She ought to be happy, but it seemed so long since the last time she had felt completely happy. It was like her own heart could not deal with it. She wanted to be happy about the news, but her mind kept telling her of all the things that could go wrong. That Rickon won’t remember her, that she would die on her way North to see him, that the lords would use him as a pawn in their game of power and tear him apart. That she would get close enough to him to see him die.

 

"I thought you thought he was an idiot, my lady." Gendry pulled her away from her morbid thoughts, and back to the silly plan she and Ned had of making him jealous.

 

"Not particularly. To be honest all men are different kinds of idiots in my opinion."

 

Gendry’s complete demeanor relaxed and he let out a laugh, and suddenly he was pushing a strand of hair away from her face and lingered on her brown locks for a moment. Her breath stopped at the intimate touch. And she realized not for the first time how good it felt when he touched her. It just felt right. “You would say that of men”

 

"Yes well, In all my years I have not exactly developed a trust of men." She only said the truth, but apparently this only served to ruin the moment, for Gendry let his hand drop from her hair. She decided to continue telling the truth. "Except for you."

 

"You trust me?" He seemed a bit breathless as he said this. She looked into his eyes his eyes to answer, and suddenly she was breathless at the intensity of his gaze.

 

"With my life." Gendry was getting closer to her, one hand on her waist and the other at the base of her neck. Their foreheads touched first and then the tip of their noses. She was breathing the same air as his. But she could not bring herself to kiss him, not when she had made up her mind about what she wanted to do. If they kissed now, only to never see each other again, she might never feel warm again.

 

"Gendry, stop." Immediately he began to pull away, but she held onto his arms tightly and kept him close. "Wait. I just need to know…" His eyes were a bit darker somehow, but nevertheless transfixed her with what she was in them. ‘He does want me’ she realized, Edric was right all along.

 

"Tell me, please." He seemed to be making a big effort to restrain himself from kissing her, which nearly made her forget what she wanted to ask in the first place. "Please, Arya."

 

"I need to go North, I have to-"

 

"I’ll go with you." His response was quick, nearly desperate.

 

"But-"

 

"To the North. Beyond the Wall. To Dorne, To all the seven hells."

 

She could not help herself after that, her lips were kissing him before she even noticed.

 

Edric was right, it felt millions times better that the first had been. A fire burnt deep in her guts as she put her arms around his neck. His own arm circled her waist completely pushing her against him completely. She could not know how long they kissed, for it was infinite while it lasted and too short once it ended.

 

"I only want you to go home with me." She confessed. She did not meant to sound so sentimental, but suddenly she didn’t care too much about appearing strong in front of him.

 

"You’re my home. Where you go, I follow." He seemed to be in the same stand as her, saying what was in their hearts. "Is Edric going too?" His tone was much lighter than before, but there was still some resentment there. Clearly the young lord awoke his jealousy.

 

"I don’t care where he’s going. As long as we’re going North to Rickon."

 

"We will. I promise." He smiled, and leaned closer again for another kiss.

 

His kisses would warm her on the way north.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I actually wrote all that fluffy mushy stuff at the end. Who knew I had it in me. Please review, if only to ask me to update all the other fics xD


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